I Watched Our Marriage Expire

I can see the shelf life of every couple's marriage. For ordinary couples who've made it to seven years, the number usually hovers around sixty percent. But my husband, Ethan Bennett, and I had been married for years, and the number above our heads had always stayed at one hundred percent. That marriage was the one thing I was sure of. But the cracks came out of nowhere. That day, he came home from the lab, and our shelf life dropped straight to ninety-seven percent. Panic instantly gripped my heart. I cleaned the house, replaced everything at home he didn't like again and again, and went over every little detail that might have displeased him. Ethan only smiled and said I was overthinking things. I forced myself not to dwell on it, telling myself it was just a small blip from the seven-year itch. Until that movie let out. On a whim, I pulled him into a cat cafe. His graduate student—my stepsister, Piper Turner—was working there part-time. She held a cat in her arms and cheerfully invited us to pet it. The instant he reached out his hand, I clearly saw the number above his head plummet—ninety percent. The air froze. I caught the faint flush creeping up his ears, and I couldn't breathe. So what had been dragging down our perfect marriage was never the housework or the little things. It was her. Chapter 1 "Professor Bennett, Mara—I can't believe I ran into you here." Piper Turner came over with a cat in her arms and a friendly smile. I couldn't make myself smile back. When she'd wanted to join Ethan's research group, I was the one who'd gone soft and begged him again and again to take her. Now that kindness had become a blade turned against me. "Mara likes cats, so we came in to look around." Ethan must have noticed my expression, because he reached for my hand. "Then pick out any cat you like, Mara. I'll give you the staff discount." I was about to shake my head when Ethan said, "Do you have any calmer ones you'd recommend?" My fingers clamped around his wrist. I'd brought up getting a cat before. Ethan had always refused. He was a neat freak and didn't like animals. And I'd been born with a heightened sensitivity to smell. Pet hair gave me headaches and made my eyes water, so a cat had never really made sense for us anyway. Piper started to introduce the cat Ethan had just petted. I yanked my hand free, turned, and hurried out of the cafe. The mall's air-conditioning hit my face, but it couldn't cool the heat building inside me. Ethan caught up and grabbed my arm. "What's wrong?" He was a little out of breath, but his voice was as gentle as ever. I looked straight at him, my eyes red. "I thought you didn't want a cat." He sighed helplessly and lifted a hand to wipe away my tears. "You've always wanted one, haven't you? I thought I'd go along with it for you." I turned my face away from his touch. "Are you having a reaction?" Tears were one of my symptoms when my sensitivity flared up. "Forget it. We won't get one." He let his hand drop and pulled me into his arms instead. I barely slept that night. In my dream, our marriage's shelf life dropped to zero. And Ethan left me forever. I woke up drenched in sweat. Ethan had already left for campus. My heart wouldn't stop pounding. I pulled myself together and headed to campus too. Outside the building, I ran into a colleague. He grinned and teased, "Mara, you don't even have class today and you're still bringing him lunch? You two are so sweet." I forced a half-hearted smile and hurried into the lab building. Ethan was bent over Piper, walking her through how to run an instrument. Their heads were almost touching. In just one night, the number had dropped another five points. Only eighty-five percent was left. "Mrs. Bennett, you're here!" The other students in the lab greeted me one after another. One of them noticed where I was looking and scoffed. "Professor Bennett spoils Piper rotten. "When we mess up an experiment, he chews us out on the spot. "But when it's Piper, it's like he doesn't even have a temper. "She pulled an all-nighter on an experiment once, and he stayed with her the whole night." My heart clenched. That was the day the shelf life had first dropped. So he'd spent that entire night with Piper. "He always gives her the soup you make for him. None of us have ever gotten a taste." I followed the student's gaze. On a nearby table sat an open insulated container. The soup had gone completely cold. Piper walked over, picked it up, and said offhandedly, "It's cold." "Then just dump it. Nobody wants cold soup," Ethan replied flatly. The pieces of duck I'd carefully simmered went straight into the trash. The thud of the meat hitting the side of the bin was like a dull knife sawing at me, over and over. Was everything I did for him really worth so little? Chapter 2 Only then did Ethan notice me standing in the doorway. He came over quickly and took the lunch box from my hands. "You came all the way here with lunch and didn't even tell me first?" I kept staring at the trash can and kept my voice low. "So you just dump it?" "Duck soup smells awful once it's cold." He said it flatly, as if what he'd thrown away was nothing more than a glass of tap water. "I get up at five every morning to make that soup, and you turn around and give all of it to her. Whatever she doesn't finish, you throw out. You could have just told me you didn't want it. Is that so hard?" Ethan frowned and cut me off. "Piper gets to the lab at nine every day, and the workload is brutal. Of course I look out for her a little more. "Mara, don't be so petty. There are students everywhere." His eyes swept the room. What he cared about had never been whether I was hurt. Only how things looked in front of other people. Piper walked over with the empty container and a sweet, innocent look. "Mara, your soup is really good!" Ethan reached for my hand again, a silent signal not to make a scene. I avoided his hand and gave him a cold smile. "You all go eat at the dining hall. There are leftovers at home. I'm heading back." "Fine. Go home, and we'll talk tonight." He set the lunch box down without a second thought, then turned and left with Piper and the other students. I looked at the number above his head. It had fallen to seventy percent. The lunch box was still steaming, and everything in it was food Ethan loved. Right now, it was ridiculous. That night was our weekly family dinner. I went over to my mom's house early to help cook. Just as the last dish was brought to the table, the front door opened. Ethan was carrying Piper's canvas tote, and the two of them walked in one after the other. Piper tossed her jacket aside and threw herself into my mother's arms. "Mom!" she said sweetly. Mom couldn't stop smiling. She completely ignored me, standing in the kitchen doorway. In a single afternoon, the number had dropped another three points. Sixty-seven percent—almost below the line most ordinary couples hovered at. The moment our eyes met, Ethan calmly picked up Piper's jacket and hung it neatly in the closet, as if nothing were wrong. I turned and retreated into the kitchen. Ethan followed right behind me. He wrapped his arms around me from behind. "Thanks for doing all this." The smell of disinfectant on him used to comfort me. Now it set off my sensitivity, and my chest grew tight and panicky. I pushed him away. "The smell on you is bothering me." He went stiff. "Is your condition getting worse? I'll take you to the doctor tomorrow." When I said nothing, he sighed. "Are you still upset? "Mara, is something that small really worth getting angry over? You're not a kid anymore." He was right. I was almost thirty. I was long past crying and screaming. Chapter 3 At dinner, Mom kept piling food onto Piper's and Ethan's plates. Piper had one foot propped carelessly on the edge of her chair, her shorts riding up to show off a pair of dazzlingly pale legs. I frowned. "Put your leg down. That's not how you sit at the table." The words had barely left my mouth when Mom snapped at me. "Stop acting like you're her teacher. It's not a big deal." Ethan put a piece of meat on my plate. "I read online that sitting like that is a sign of poor circulation. Don't give her a hard time." Piper nodded eagerly. "Exactly. Mara's so mean." They played off each other perfectly, and somehow I ended up looking like the unreasonable one. For years, Mom had favored Piper and her father, Frank. I'd long since gotten used to it. But tonight was the first time Ethan had taken their side against me. Mom turned to Piper. "Your dorm is so rundown you can't rest properly. Why don't you move in with your sister? The guest room's empty anyway, and she can cook for you." "I have to prep lessons, teach, and write papers every day. I'm busy. I don't have time to take care of her," I said, holding myself back. "You teach humanities. How busy can you be? It's not like your work takes any brains." Piper's eyes flicked toward Ethan. Mom followed her lead and looked at him too. "Ethan, what do you think?" Ethan looked up. His voice was gentle, but every word cut into me. "Whatever Mom thinks is best." The instant he finished speaking, the number above his head went into free fall. My stomach churned. I slammed down my fork and stood up. "The apartment's in my name. I don't agree, and nobody is moving in." "What are you throwing a fit for?" Mom grabbed her plate and hurled it at me. I couldn't dodge in time. It shattered, and a shard sliced the corner of my eye. Ethan quickly set down his fork and got up to check the cut. I heard Mom's voice. "Ethan paid for that apartment in full. "He only put it in your name because he cares about you. Don't push your luck." Back then, I'd wanted to pay part of it, but Ethan wouldn't let me. He said the apartment was my security in our marriage. I looked at Ethan. He hadn't said a word the whole time. His silence agreed with every word she'd said. I turned my face away from the hand checking my cut, and my voice went cold. "Fine. Then I'll move out." Before anyone could stop me, I spun around and rushed out the door. The cold wind whipped against the cut by my eye, and it stung unbearably. Without thinking, I looked back. The stairwell was pitch black. Ethan hadn't followed me. I gripped my phone and called Richard Lewis, the mentor for a collaborative project I'd been invited to. "Richard, are you still one person short on your project? Can I join?" "With your teaching experience? Of course you can. "But..." He hesitated. "You won't be back for at least four or five years. Have you talked this over with Ethan?" "I'm going." Rather than watch our shelf life slide toward zero day after day, maybe leaving was the best way out. Chapter 4 Ethan didn't come home that night. He only sent a text saying Mom had asked him to stay over. I glanced at it, deleted it, and packed my bags that same night. If he wanted to say the apartment was his, then I wouldn't take a thing. I'd leave clean. The next morning, in the middle of teaching, the constant anxiety and the dizziness from my overloaded sense of smell finally knocked me down. I collapsed at the front of the lecture hall. When I came to, my best friend, Nina Grant, was sitting by my hospital bed peeling an apple. The moment she saw my eyes open, she couldn't hold back her anger. "I called Ethan half an hour after they brought you in. He sounded all worried, but that was two hours ago, and there's still no sign of him." I leaned back against the bed. My tongue was numb. Even when she held the apple to my lips, I couldn't taste it. "He and I are about to split up." Nina was stunned. "Why?" As my best friend, she'd seen our entire love story from start to finish. "Did he cheat?" I shook my head. I didn't know how to explain the marriage shelf life. All I could do was say quietly, "You know those stories where someone crosses a line in just a few seconds, and you realize everything's already changed? "The moment he started crossing lines, he'd already given up on me and on this marriage." Nina didn't know what to say. She sat with me a while longer, then took out her phone. After scrolling for a bit, she suddenly turned to me. "Didn't you and Ethan write *The Fireworks of Love* together?" She handed me her phone, and I looked. "Yes." I'd poured so much into that article, stayed up so many nights. I knew every word of it by heart. She looked puzzled. "Then why isn't your name on it?" My eyes went to the byline. Ethan Bennett. Piper Turner. Everything inside me froze. It felt like I couldn't breathe. Right then, Ethan pushed the door open, carrying a gift box. He looked as gentle as ever. It was painful to see. I pushed down my emotions and forced myself to stay calm. "Why did you change the byline on *The Fireworks of Love* to you and Piper?" A flash of panic crossed Ethan's eyes before he quickly covered it up. He explained, perfectly composed, "Piper needs one more core publication for her PhD application. I had no choice but to adjust the authorship. "We're married. You're not going to make a big deal out of something this small with me. "I talked to Mom last night, and she agrees with what I did." "This is small? "You know exactly how hard I worked on that paper!" I looked above his head. The number had fallen to forty-five percent. Lower than couples who were only staying together because it was easier than leaving. Nina had a short fuse. She shot to her feet and laid into him. "It's obvious Piper has ulterior motives, and you just handed her the paper your wife bled herself dry to write. How could you do this to Mara? "That paper directly affects her promotion." Ethan frowned, annoyed at Nina's bluntness, and turned to me. "You're not young anymore. Rushing a promotion won't do you any good. I've told you I can take care of you for the rest of your life. "Besides, Piper is your sister. You should cut her some slack." "Ethan." I calmly cut him off, speaking slowly and clearly. "I'm twenty-nine. I have my own career and my own limits. I haven't reached the point where I'll put up with anything. "I want a divorce."